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The Group and China Business

First of all, remember that chinese word i kept yelling to make fun of the chinese right before i left? nehoma? well that is actually a word and it is spelled ni hao ma, which stands for how are you? pretty funny.

Dalian is way better than Beijing. We went into the city today and it has tons of parks and a really cool coastal road. It has Greek windmills, Russian style buildings, and Chinese towering sky scrapers that are just apartment complexs. Traffic is less but not by much. we actually saw a scooterist hit a van today. pretty funny, he was ok. It is cooler but humidity is not any different. It really is not that easy to get around, if you want to go somewhere cool you need a taxi.

The college campus is very small but it is super clean and actually really nice. The buildings arent much to marvel at but it is very clean, has a lot of trees, and seems to be completely seperate from the city. I actually played in a bsketball game with Sean today with the locals. We got worked. It was 3 on 3 but the local we were teamed up with couldnt do anything but rebound, i mean nothing else. So it was really 2 on 3. The dorm room is huge, really high ceilings around 10 ft tall. Plenty of room even though we have already trashed it. Nate is actually dirtier than me. Nate is actually really cool and I am really enjoying his company. He is very relxed, doesnt get flustered about anything and is pretty funny. More outgoing than I thought. So this has been great.

The culture is very interesting. Chinese people never speak to strangers. When we played basketball, they didnt ask us our names, say good shot, or anything. It wasnt because they were rude, they are just super quiet. The dating scene would really suck as a guy here because girls never approach guys and never start conversation. They are a very simple people. Business sense, they are all very smart and they all realize the importance of education. However, as a country, there is almost zero innovation. There are no stories of companies like Google coming out of any garages. Haier, the laundry brand and appliance company is Chinas biggest innovator and that is not very significant. Because there is no capitalism, there is no motivation to come up with something on their own. The government will spread the wealth out and therefore people dont have the motivation to make anything new. I didnt realize that at all until I came here. Innovation is what runs America but labor and shear man power runs China.

No homework but we study every night. everyone is very focused on learning this language and I am actually very motivated myself. We go through at least a chapter a day. It is very hard because for every letter, there is 4 ways to pronounce it. The same word can be spelled the same exact way but one letter can be pronounced four different ways and it makes 4 different words. Ma means four different things if you pronounce a differently. Intense.

There are 5 people in the class including me. Riki is originally from Sacramento California. she is 31, has two kids, one 13 and the other 9.

Anna is 19 and from Manchester in Great Britain. She waitresses for Manchester United but is a Manchester City fan so it has been really cool to hear her stories. her family is loaded! she is super nice and funny and hopefully one day I can go visit her in the UK. Has a lot of hot friends, seen the pictures, wow.

Sean is 26 and just graduated OSU. He is a super nice guy and reall;y down to earth. he is very easy to talk to and really has his head on right. very relaxed guy and really doesnt get flustered. Hes really cool, music major.

Tim started in our class but he already took a year of mandarin so he is in the intermediate course now with apparently a lot of hot russians. So that could be a great thing. He is from Astoria, plans on going into the military, and has pretty conservative views. I think he is hilarious even if he doesnt try to be. His maneurisms are just funny. He is also pretty nice dude but is a little high strung.
But my favorite mentor by far is Bingting. She is hilarious. First thing she reminded me of was Grandma Foof. She has her maneurisms, spunk, wit, and energy. She makes fun of me just like grandma and she is just the shit. She is awesome. Hilarious accent also, she kind of does what grandma does and extends some words…idk, you guys will have to meet her. Don’t worry, shes no Sing long loo and I am not attracted to her so she will not be coming back to the states, just making that clear now.

The CSU kids stayed in Beijing. It sucks cause I know Kyle would love this place way more than Beijing. Plus I miss my party buddy. No one here really likes to go out and party here except for Riki and I just dont want to deal with that. He did say that he was going to come and visit next weekend so im hoping he lives up to that,